Monday, 30 March 2015

Summation with a variable as the upper limit




mn=1nn!(mn)mn=?



My attempts on the problem:



I tried writing out the summation.



1+\frac{2(m+1)}{m} + \frac{3(m-1)(m-2)}{m^2} + \cdots + \dfrac{m\cdot m!}{m^m}



I saw that the ratio between each of the terms is \dfrac{\dfrac{n}{n-1} (m-n+1)}{m}




I wasn't able to proceed because this isn't a geometric series. Please help!



I would appreciate a full solution if possible.


Answer



Expanding the binomial {m\choose n} = \frac{m!}{(m-n)!n!} your sum can be written
m!\sum_{n=1}^m \frac{1}{(m-n)!}\frac{n}{m^n}



We can now change the summation index i = m-n (i.e. summing from m down to 0) to get
\frac{m!}{m^m}\sum_{i=0}^{m-1} \frac{m^i}{i!}(m-i) = \frac{m!}{m^m}\left[\sum_{i=0}^{m-1} m^{i+1}\frac{1}{i!} - \sum_{i=0}^{m-1} m^i\frac{i}{i!}\right]




Now use \frac{i}{i!} = \frac{1}{(i-1)!} and change the summation index j=i-1 in the last sum and you will see that most of the terms will cancel giving you a simple result (=m).


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